Liber v. Flor’s Empirical Analysis
1960
Citation profile
24 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 24 later decisions — most recently March 1985
24 state decisions
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
Relationships
Relies on Collopy v. Newark Eye and Ear Infirmary · Barker v. City of Santa Fe · Amann v. Faidy · Ace Flying Service, Inc. v. Colorado Department of Agriculture · Board of County Commissioners v. Adler
Most-quoted passages
The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 24 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““The rule that counties are not liable for torts, in the absence of statute, is universally acknowledged. And the great weight of authority is in favor of the conclusion that, even when a duty is imposed by statute, the county is not liable for failure to perform it, in the absence of express provision, creating such liability. The cases sustaining the latter conclusion are so numerous that space will not permit of their citation in this opinion. They will be found collated in part in the notes on page 364 of the fourth volume of the American and English Encyclopedia of Law, and also in note 1, page 303 of Cooley’s Constitutional Limitations.” In Justice Hall’s dissent to Liber v. Flor, 143 Colo. 205 , 353 P.2d 590 (1960), he pointed out a distinct lack oí favorable impression from reading the cases collated on page 364 of the fourth volume of American and English Encyclopedia of Law. He noted that “the court [in Bish] made no effort at analysis of the problem presented in light of the constitution or reason.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage“If the contention of plaintiff be the law, then each individual commissioner would be liable in like actions to this, because of damages suffered by an individual by reason of alleged defects in a public highway or in a county bridge, or in any public building, or in the public grounds in which it might be situate. To so hold would tend in the large counties of the state, at least, to bring about, as was said by the supreme court of Idaho, "the literal abrogation of the office of county commissioner, for no sane man would assume the position with such a liability attached." (Citation omitted).”
1 later decision quote this exact passage““After as careful and full an investigation as we have been able to give, we answer that none of the provisions of the constitution referred to will be violated by the enactment into law of the bill in question. We recognize the doctrine that, without constitutional or legislative authority, the state in its sovereign capacity cannot be sued. No such authority exists in this state. This being so, no liability upon contract or tort, if any there be, can be enforced against the state in any of its courts.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.